


Needless to Say

by Ijustwannaread



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Author has serious beef with the finale, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, I rant in the notes a lot, Injury Recovery, Missing Scene, hurt-comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-16 14:05:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ijustwannaread/pseuds/Ijustwannaread
Summary: Quentin and Margo get Eliot back and a lot of happy tears happen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If this title wasn't too long I would call this piece: “Even though the writers seem to think Life is Pain and Good Art Means Death and Despair and all that Bullshit, I think that we deserve a sappy ending where our heroes reunite and are happy for one goddamn minute, and then Eliot and Q get a beautiful slow burn romance as they both heal from the garbage fire that was the plot of this season.” And this means a lot coming from me, the self-affirmed Queen of Adhering to Canon. This show did it to me – I'm going to write a damn fix it because I truly think it's a fucking waste of a beautiful setup to kill a character and then claim that somehow it's high art, and that his character arc had come to an organic end. And no, I'm not going to write any conflict or nuance because this is fanfic and I just want some unadulterated fluff.

_“[Margo] was about as annoying as a person could be and still be your friend, but Quentin was never bored around her. She was passionately loyal, and if she was obnoxious it was only because she was so deeply tender-hearted. It made her easily wounded, and when she was wounded she lashed out. She tortured everybody around her, but only because she was more tortured than anyone.”_

        – Lev Grossman, The Magicians

_“Quentin hugged him so hard that Eliot spilled his whiskey down his front, which he complained about loudly, but Quentin didn’t care. He had to make sure Eliot was real and solid. It made no sense that he was here, but thank God he was. Quentin had had enough of sadness and horror and futility for one day. He needed a friend, somebody who knew him from the old days.”_

        -Lev Grossman, The Magicians Land 

 

Margo had once tasted the blood of a man she was about to marry, right after his head got sliced from his body. She had seen plenty of people bleed in her life. Hell, she'd been bleeding once a month since she was eleven.

Still, the thick heat of the blood running between her fingers as she held Eliot's wound together was one of the single most terrifying experiences of her life.

“Eliot!” She screamed. She almost didn't recognize the sound of her own voice. Eliot's head listed to the side. He still looked like the Monster. He looked dead.

“Eliot, please. Eliot!” It came out worse this time.

Like magic, his eyes slipped open fractionally, and Margo almost couldn't believe her eyes.

“Well, when you put it so sweetly, Bambi.”

Unmistakably Eliot.

Margo felt a weight lift off of her chest, and she could breathe again. Suddenly, her world expanded and she was aware again of Penny and Quentin and the bottles looming over her. She looked up, and saw them, still moving their hands methodically to hold the magic as long as possible.

“Penny! Get us out of here!” She yelled. Penny looked at her with almost as much fear in his eyes as he had looked at the Monster. She must look insane. Penny shot a look towards Quentin, and then grabbed the bottles and Quentin's upper arm, surged forward and they were gone.

Margo realized quickly that they were just outside of the Brakebills Infirmary. She blinked, and lingering tear from her eye dropped. She could have kissed Penny.

“Oh my god, that's a lot of blood,” said Quentin, ghost white and staring at the carnage that was Eliot's once white shirt.

“You need to get the bottle to Alice, Q – I can take him from here,” Margo said. She could already see movement from the inside as medical personnel caught wind of the critically bleeding man outside their front steps.

Quentin nodded, but seemed frozen for a moment, staring down an Eliot like he was at once a ticking time bomb and a life raft.

Eliot once again opened his eyes a crack, and his eyes seemed to track Margo and then Quentin. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead folded over in a strangled cough. A thick trail of blood came out and down the corner of his mouth. Margo shot out a hand to steady him, but managed only to stain the rest of his shirt as she guided him down.

“Go!” She yelled, incapable of anything else.

Quentin and Penny seemed to break from their trance. Penny set his jaw and they were gone.

“Ma'am, I need you to step aside,” came a voice from above. Margo's eyes were still swimming with unshed tears of utter panic, so she couldn't make out any features of the man who brushed her aside to lift Eliot onto a gurney. Margo got up from her crouch on the pavement on shaky legs and followed them like a ghost as they rushed into the building.

Immediately, they were intercepted by Professor Lipson, who was pulling on gloves and had begun assessing Eliot's limp form with steely eyed determination.

Lipson simply grabbed a clean towel and resumed staunching the flow of blood just as Margo had done in the forest. Eliot was utterly silent, and his face was ashen. Any of the calm that Margo had felt upon making it to the infirmary evaporated.

“Do something, please!” Margo yelled. She would be damned if Eliot would die now, after everything. He was not going to bleed out in a hospital corridor.

“They need all of the ambient for those bottles,” The professor said, the utter bitch.

“What's the point of being a magician if you can't use it?” Margo demanded.

“Before I was a magician, I was a trauma surgeon. I'm perfectly capable of saving him the old-fashioned way,” she replied. “If you need to cry, go outside.”

The doors to the surgery ward slammed shut in front of Margo. The worst part was that Lipson was right- she was crying like a little girl. Her face was a mess of half dried tear tracks, and every breath she drew in ached.

Margo didn't have a single witty reply to yell pointlessly at the closed door.

She just sunk into a chair in the hallway and let herself give in to a borderline hysterical crying jag, surrounded by the strangest parade of magicians standing haphazardly in the hallway silently performing the spell in perfect harmony. None of them could break concentration, which suited Margo just fine. If she had to ugly cry in public, she would be goddamned if anyone really witnessed it.

Margo lost track of time until, just as universally as they had moved together during the spell, the hospital staff stopped. They all immediately broke back into into normal hospital action, and the ebb and flow of the infirmary returned to normal.

So it was over, then.

Margo didn't have an single shred of energy left for relief. Instead, she took the newly freed up ambient to lash out her own magic, slashing a half-unintentional scorch mark on the white wall in front of her. An orderly gave her a dirty look, but otherwise she wasn't questioned.

She thought briefly of Josh and Fen, and how far away they were. She thought of how both of them would wrap her in their arms and they wouldn't let go until she told them to. The thought was distasteful. Margo stuck up her chin. She let a breath of air out of her nose and imagined she was sitting in her throne in Fillory.

There, that helped.

“Margo?”

Margo managed to focus on the source of the voice: Quentin. He was making his way down the hallway, looking, frankly, dazed and lost.

“Did you do it?” Margo asked, standing up challengingly. Quentin shrunk back a bit, but replied.

“Yes.”

“Thank Christ,” she said, sagging down again. “I was sure you were going to fuck it up,” she said, smiling.

Quentin's face broke into a painful smile, too. He let out a tight little laugh. The sterile hallway suddenly appeared marginally less gray, and Margo strode over and looped her arms around his neck.

Quentin returned the hug, stiltedly at first. They stood there like that for a while, and Quentin gamely ignored the fact that Margo was still shaking like a leaf. When they finally stepped apart, Quentin cleared his throat.

“Uh- here,” he said, and reached a hand into his pocket and produced her eye. “Penny got this for you,” he explained. “Sorry, um-” he wiped it off on the front of his shirt, almost dropping it in the process.

Margo actually laughed. She stuck out her hand, and, without ceremony, popped it back in her socket with a sickening slurping, crunching noise. Quentin recoiled violently, and she couldn't help but laugh at him.

Someone cleared their throat pointedly from behind them. Margo and Quentin turned and stood at attention. Professor Lipton had materialized in the hallway. Her white uniform was liberally splattered with blood, and she was shucking her gloves off with a clinical finality that sent something dark into the pit of Margo's stomach.

“I got the wound closed the old fashioned way,” she announced. “Which is a garbage method to be frank, but it's holding for now.”

Margo and Quentin let out a breath almost in perfect tandem.

Professor Lipton pointed towards the ward at the end of the hall.

“He's in the recovery ward now, if you want to see him.” They both immediately started run walking towards the door, but she called after them.

“Don't get too comfortable! As soon as there's enough ambient I'm going to need my patient back. He's not out of the woods yet,” she said, but neither of them were really listening.

Margo found the proper door and flung it open unceremoniously. Eliot was laying on a hospital bed that looked like it was barely long enough to accommodate his height. His face was almost as colorless as it had been when he was still bleeding liberally on the forest floor. He was now wearing a pale blue hospital gown, which was somehow a much better look than the graphic tee he'd been wearing previously. Remarkably more on brand.

Margo and Quentin crept over to him cautiously, as though he were liable to shatter if they breathed too strongly in his direction.

Eliot's long hair was splayed artlessly on the bedsheets. He would hate that. Margo reached out and tucked some of the strands behind his ears. Quentin let out a shaky sigh.

A hand covered hers mid-motion. At first, Margo thought absurdly that it was Quentin, but she quickly realized the hand was attached to Eliot. He opened his eyes heavily, and looked at her with a knowing fondness that she hadn't seen in ages. It knocked the wind out of her. She glanced back at Quentin, hoping to ground herself again but his eyes were filled with unshed tears.

“Hey,” said Eliot searchingly. Margo's brain couldn't compose a single apt sentence, glib or otherwise.

“Welcome back?” tried Quentin. He was smiling in a way that looked like it hurt.

“Thanks, Q,” breathed Eliot. He took in what looked to be a painful inhale, and looked down at his bandaged abdomen. “Quick question, did Bambi stab me or was that all in my head?”

“Yup,” said Margo. “And you're welcome, asshole.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margo updates Eliot on some key plot points. Eliot and Quentin dance around each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the physical embodiment of “...and ANOTHER thing!!!” Because I kept thinking of how stupid it was to show a permanent character death, market it as “*~realistic~*” and then include a scene where the character gets some sort of catharsis from watching his friends be devastated he died from beyond the grave? What the hell is that??? God fuck. Here's some more of my bullshit.

Eliot is perched carefully on the couch in the Physical Kids cottage in a way that he clearly thinks is a casual, nonchalant pose but only serves to illustrate the fact that he would be much better off horizontal.

Margo feels ready to crawl out of her own skin. Alice and Quentin are sequestered somewhere upstairs doing God knows what, and part of Margo wants to draw them out and yell at them for something or other. She doesn't know what yet, but that would certainly come to her when the moment presented itself. Still, she feels glued to Eliot, and doesn't feel inclined to be anywhere that he isn't at the moment.

Dressed in a loose polo shirt and a pair of plain black pants, Eliot doesn't look anywhere near his usual artfully curated and immaculately-pressed style, but it's certainly a far cry from either bleeding-out-Eliot, hospital-gown chic Eliot, and wildly less reminiscent of possessed-by-ancient-Evil-Eliot.

Margo doesn't know whether to thank Professor Lipton's Wild West attitude towards modern medicine for allowing Eliot to leave the hospital as soon as she did or whether to drag him right back and demand that she keep him until he has a perfect bill of health. It doesn't seem fair how long a road to recovery Eliot has ahead, and how an hour at home attempting some semblance of normalcy already seems to be so utterly taxing.

Margo leaves the common room to grab a beer. She slams the door to the fridge shut a touch too hard, and then leverages the top off violently on the edge of a table, whittling away a large chip of the wood in the process. She pauses to stand in the doorway and take a long pull of the drink. It's a light lager, perfectly acceptable to enjoy responsibly during her babysitting duty.

Margo strides back into the living room, fully prepared to resume pacing like a caged tiger, but Eliot fixes her with a furtive look and pats the spot on the couch next to him.

Margo can't deny him. She plops down and sits close. She hesitates for a minute, then sinks down to the left so that her head is in Eliot's lap, and brings feet back to rest on the arm on the opposite side of the couch. Eliot twitches briefly in pain as she settles in against him, but the way his face cracks into a smile makes it worth it. It's downright sentimental, but she missed just this.

He curls his fingers into hers, and they sit in the moment for a while.

Then, Eliot looks down at Margo, and clears his throat primly, theatrically.

“Spill, Bambi.” Margo raises her eyebrows. Eliot tilts his head impatiently.

“I've been gone for how many weeks? Months? How many pop culture references am I going to miss?” Margo narrowly avoids snorting a laugh.

“Ya know, I've been pretty preoccupied for tv-”

“Fillory,” Eliot says flatly.

Margo has to look away.

“Be prepared to hail High King Fen,” she announces. Eliot blinks.

“Okay,” he says, drawing out the syllables as he takes in the news. “And what about High King Margo?” He asks.

“Royally banished. It was written, or whatever. Nothing to be done about it,” Margo brushes him off, but the thought of it sends an icy hot dagger into the pit of her stomach.

“Hmmm,” Eliot says. “Not to say I don't support my wife in all her royal endeavors, of course, but... fuck that. From one formerly banished monarch to another,” he says.

“Fillory needs you,” he says. Margo squeezes his hand harder.

“Fillory needs us,” She counters, and it feels true. They let the statement settle.

“It's a good thing we can count on Fen to handle shit in the meantime,” Eliot says, finally giving a semblance of a nod to the fact that he's weak as a newborn kitten and the question of going back to Fillory is a moot point until he's ready to stand for more than a minute at a time without Margo gamely propping him up.

Margo takes a long drink of her beer and closes her eyes. Everything might be alright for now, but the situation's still always an unrelenting clusterfuck, somehow.

She feels the glass bottle slip from her fingers, and looks up to see Eliot about to take a sip from her drink.

“I'm not your mother, Eliot,” she warns, and deftly swipes it from his fingers.

Eliot makes a low sound of protest.

“If you really want your internal organs to look like mince meat forever, by all means,” Margo challenges, setting the drink on the table with a loud thunk. Eliot looks at up the ceiling and shakes his head.

“And if you say this is my fault, I'll shove this bottle so far up your ass it'll come back out through your fucking stab wound,” Margo continues. Eliot looks back down at her.

“I wasn't going to say that,” he says, quietly. Sense of humor abandoned. Margo scrubs her hands over her face, makeup be damned.

“I know.”

Suddenly, there's a thunderous sound of someone hurrying down the stairs. They both look to see Quentin arrive at the base of the staircase and rush to grab his coat like he's in the middle of a quest.

“Hey- where are you going?” Margo calls to him. Quentin turns towards them, and his eyes widen comically.

“Eliot? You're home? I was just going to go to the - to see-” Quentin babbles, adorably flustered.

“Hey, Q. Surprise?” Eliot says, with at least a shadow of his typical flair. Margo can feel him tense underneath her, and she sits back up to accommodate him better.

“Weren't you supposed to stay until the weekend?” Margo can't tell whether Quentin is being a few notches ahead of his usual level of tightly wound neurotic or if she's imagining it. He's standing stiffly and seems uncertain what to do with himself. He tucks his hair behind his ears and flightily looks around the room.

“Got off on good behavior,” Eliot says, and quirks a smile. Margo rolls her eyes.

“Hardly.”

“Doesn't matter,” Eliot says quickly. “Come, sit.” Quentin hesitates for a moment, and then plops down bonelessly onto the couch next to them.

“Want to join in the Update Eliot Game?” Eliot asks.

“Jesus, haven't we done enough of that for today?” Margo interjects. Eliot gives her a look that is at once searching and mildly annoyed. Quentin blows out a long breath that's almost a laugh, and his expression indicates that the idea of rehashing the months being dragged through the mud by a monster wearing his friend like a skin suit is a thought so miserable that it verges on comical. There's an awkward pause, and Eliot clearly feels like he's missing something. A feeling Margo is well aware he despises.

“You know what?” Forget I asked,” Eliot says. “I can ask Alice or Julia, anyway.” He crosses his arms, and looks Quentin up and down.

“Not for nothing, Q, but you look like you need a hug,” he blurts. He smiles a little, hoping to alleviate some of the tension. Quentin laughs, for real.

“I- you know- maybe I do,” he says. He sounds mildly hysterical. Margo smiles, too. It's nice to see Quentin unravel, and she thinks that in the nicest way. He's been running on pure anxiety for too long.

Eliot takes a breath, and through what must be sheer force of will, staggers to a standing position and holds out an arm.

“May I?” He says, attempting for suave, but his attempt is largely undercut by the fact that he both sounds uncharacteristically shy and Margo just jumps up into alert like he's a kitten stuck up a tree.

Quentin, for what it's worth, gamely closes the distance between them and allows himself to be folded into an embrace. At Eliot's full height, the Monster had loomed over them all, and like a dark cloud had maintained his constant insidious presence known through halting, constant touch. But for all the Monster had destroyed, and all the times it had betrayed every personal boundary it encountered, Eliot had lived there longer, and the muscle memory is still there.

Something warm blossoms in Quentin's throat when he settles into place with Eliot's arms wrapped around him, and his throat tightens when Eliot's chin comes to a rest on the top of his head. There are no searching fingers carding through his hair this time. Eliot feels solid, and squeezes him a bit tighter when he takes a long, thick breath against the well of emotion the embrace invites.

“God,” Quentin says thickly, in awe of the situation.

“Nope, just Eliot,” Eliot says. Quentin cranes his neck to give Eliot a look, and then they both have to laugh. Quentin finally pulls back when he registers just how milk-white Eliot's face has gone with the movement. He grabs Eliot by the arms, realizing that he seems unsteady when not held up partially by Quentin.

“El?” Margo asks, voice low and mildly dangerous.

“Easy,” says Quentin. Eliot just closes his eyes and seems entirely preoccupied by the task of breathing. They both take one of Eliot's shoulders and lower him back down to the couch.

Margo lifts up Eliot's shirt to inspect the thick white bandage covering his abdomen. There's no blood seeping through, but that doesn't appease her.

“Bambi- it's fine,” Eliot manages to say, voice thin.

“Oh I am going to throttle that hack doctor bitch! Rest at home- my ass, Jesus Christ,” Margo spits, seeing red. She pulls out her cellphone, already dialing the Brakebills Medical Services, ready to throw down.

Eliot looks at once fond and alarmed. Quentin is too overwhelmed to move. He stays at Eliot's side, with one hand holding onto Eliot's upper arm, steadying.

Margo sends him a scathing look and marches out of the room, phone at her ear. As Margo's angry words fade into background noise from the other room, Eliot and Quentin sit, mildly alarmed.

“You know, Eliot, you don't have to be... fine. For my sake,” Quentin says, looking anywhere but Eliot.

“Q-”

“No, I mean it.” Quentin runs a hand over his forehead, and then finally looks Eliot in the eye. “I'm just happy to have you, just, be you again.”

“To be fully honest, I feel more like swiss cheese that I feel like myself,” Eliot replies, with a lopsided half-smile. “But I appreciate your sentiment.” He drops his head to the side to rest on Quentin's shoulder.

“Well hey- the worlds not about to end. For once.” Quentin consider his words. “For now. We've got time to just rest. So please do that?” He asks.

“I will if you will, Coldwater,” Eliot replies. He lets his eyes slide shut. Quentin settles his head in to rest on top of Eliot's.

“I think I can do that,” he says.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm 1. useless at writing romance and 2. obsessed with the idea that Eliot and Quentin are made for each other but have no idea how to make that happen, especially after the clusterfuck of the plot lately. That's the only reason this didn't comprise solely of them holding hands, declaring their mutual love, and then spooning a lot. Also this assumes Alice and Q didn't get together for a hot second because I just thought that was useless.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you too felt some kind of way (read: a combination of sad and angry) about the finale. Also, I am very green to this show and the characterizations, so if I did anything super off please let me know! 
> 
> Credit to Lev Grossman also for the book quotes I added from the book because I thought they were really nice and made me feel the endless potential of these character dynamics.


End file.
